Cisco has patched a remote code execution bug that could give attackers root privileges on its Unified Computing System (UCS) Central software used by more than 30,00 organisations.
The UCS data centre server platform joins hardware, virtualisation, networking and software into one system. Versions 1.2 and below are affected. …

Sometimes, it’s better to think inside the box. Bundling different IT components together into a single unit may just solve some of your computing problems, if you plan it right. Welcome to the world of IT convergence.
Depending on which vendor or analyst you talk to, it’s known as an integrated system, a unified computing …

Like Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, except dressed as 900-pound gorillas, Cisco and Microsoft have tied the knot again to expand their cloud partnership.
Faced with the question “how can we get more clouds to run exactly the same infrastructure?”, the two have riveted OS platforms with network and computing platforms to …

Cisco wants to keep it in the family: since the Internet of Things is going to be a source of lots of data, it's signed reseller agreements with Cloudera, Hortonworks and MapR.
The agreement will give customers a single source of IoT comms integrated with the data analytics it reckons enterprises will need, both to make sense of …

Comment
The background to the peregrination of Paul Perez from Cisco to Dell throws up some interesting points related to the depressing setback of Cisco’s Invicta flash array program.
Perez moved from being the VP and general manager of computing systems at Cisco, Mr UCS server in other words, to become the chief technology officer for …

Cisco has released a hardening guide for its unified computing system (UCS) that reveals the company's servers do most things right - all manner of potentially-insecure services are off by default - but also offers plenty of suggestions to make sure risks don't increase during production.
The document centres on hardening the …

Upstart data-warehousing appliance maker Greenplum said on Wednesday that it is getting set to mash up its data-warehousing software with its OEMed distribution of the Hadoop big data muncher to create a single über data platform that it is logically calling the Unified Analytics platform.
But what the company did not announce …

It took longer to get its "California" Unified Computing System out the door than networking giant Cisco Systems would have wanted, but in July the machines started shipping to customers.
Welcome to the server business, where delays in chips and servers are the bane of your existence.
Oddly enough, it wasn't Cisco that first …

Blocks and Files
Cisco is big in converged systems but nowhere in hyper-converged ones.
What we mean by that is that Cisco is big in converged systems, such as VCE's Vblocks and the Cisco-NetApp FlexPods, but it doesn't have systems in the Nutanix and Simplivity class, which are more integrated than the Vblock and Flexpod systems.
Now that Dell …

Blocks and Files
El Reg's storage desk is hearing Cisco people saying their partnerships with storage vendors are stronger than ever, following the Whiptail acquisition. They say EMC and other storage array suppliers understand that Whiptail is a UCS-booster, not an array.
Well, excuse me, but what? The idea of Whiptail as a Unified Computing …

Cisco Systems has been talking about its Unified Computing System, code-named California, so much for months now that it is hard to remember sometimes this mega product is still not shipping.
Turns out Cisco is its own first beta test customer, and the company's IT brass Wednesday was talking about its own plans for deployment …

The word on the street this week is that Liquid Computing, an upstart server maker that has rejiggered its product line a number of times to try to get some traction, has laid off some workers as it tightens its belt in these harsh economic times. Liquid Computing has just confirmed those rumors.
As El Reg explained back in …

Chinese telecom giant and increasingly important server player Huawei Technologies is moving from racks and blades into modular designs that use a mix of both approaches – and look very much like modular kit from Cisco Systems, IBM, and Hitachi, as well as the newer bladish iron from HP and Dell.
The likeness between the …

Liquid Computing is moving further away from its home-grown server design and more towards commodity x64 iron as it tries to ride the unified computing wave.
At this month's Supercomputing 09 in Portland, Oregon, Liquid Computing will launch a cluster of rack servers using its variation on the unified server and storage fabric …

Cisco intends to buy all-flash array startup Whiptail for the huge cash sum of $415m, catapulting the networking giant full tilt into the storage market and threatening its close relationship with EMC.
John Chambers' networking giant declares: "Whiptail will strengthen Cisco's Unified Computing System (UCS) strategy and enhance …

Cisco has announced it wants to slurp private firm Composite Software, which brings together traditional and cloud data in a single view, for about $180m.
The networking giant said it would like to splice the data virtualisation software and services company into its own portfolio of Smart Services.
"Cisco's strategy is to …

Cisco Systems did more than launch two new servers earlier this week. It also rejiggered some of the networking gear used in conjunction with its Unified Computing System wares and talked a bit about its customers.
As El Reg previously reported and has been goading Cisco about since last year, the company finally put some four- …

Taking on a megacorp with over 65,000 employees and $8.5bn in annual sales may seem a daunting challenge, but the focused folks at unified-computing shop Liquid Computing have Cisco in their sights.
Virtualized servers with unified server and storage management, plus scalable and reconfigurable infrastructure, all controlled …

The competition gloves are almost off: Cisco has made available two Invicta solid-state arrays that integrate into the unified computing system (UCS) fabric but are not converged server-storage systems. The two systems, which had a low-key launch on Friday, will compete with Cisco partner EMC’s own XtremIO all-flash arrays.
The …

So much for that whole argument that networking giant and server wannabe Cisco Systems is only interested in selling a closed, proprietary stack of hardware and system software known as "California" and branded the Unified Computing System. Today, with the launch of free-standing rack servers, Cisco moved to annex (in spirit) …

Blocks and Files
Is the $450m that Cisco paid for Whiptail too high, seeing as the possible costs of the deal could include losing the EMC/VCE and NetApp/FlexPod partnerships?
Let's back up a moment. Once upon a time Cisco sold networking gear. Then it entered the server market with its UCS line. It then had two players in the 4-part data centre …

The details are a bit sketchy, but IBM is launching its first fully converged systems since it bought itself some clever storage and networking companies a few years back.
The new family of products are called PureSystems, and they are based on a new chassis and system architecture that was known as "Project Troy" inside Big …

Here's a question: If Cisco Systems, storage partner EMC, and its virtualization and cloud minion VMware are all such good buddies in the Virtual Computing Environment, then why does Cisco need to by Cloupia, a maker of cloud management software?
With VMware, and therefore EMC, buying into the virtual networking space with the …

It looks like Oracle is getting ready to roll out another in its line of so-called "engineered systems" – stacks of hardware and software tuned for very specific workloads. This one, which Oracle is getting set to announce in a webcast on August 13, will be aimed at "enterprise virtualization."
Presumably it will have a name …

The details are a bit sketchy, but in a week or so IBM hopes to unveil an update for its PureSystems family of modular boxes focussed on big data and cloud computing.
Big Blue is hosting an online product launch for "the new PureSystems family member" on 9 October, and the company will talk about the kit at events in major US …

Citrix Systems is hosting its Synergy user conference in Berlin this week, and is using the occasion to roll out a slew of nips, tucks, and tweaks to its various Xen-derived virtualization products and GoTo services.
Like everyone else in the world, it seems, Citrix is positioning itself to be the one-stop-shop for connecting …

Cisco has dug deep and found $2.7bn for intrusion prevention security player Sourcefire.
Sourcefire started out in intrusion detection/intrusion prevention but expanded over the years to add next-generation firewall and advanced malware protection wares to its portfolio.
Cisco reckons the acquisition will accelerate the …

If you are looking for one throat to choke for a virtualized x86 server stack, the right one is tough to find. But Oracle wants you to wrap your hands around Larry Ellison's neck, and is betting that its new Virtual Compute Appliance works so well and is such a good bargain that you won't squeeze.
The system makers that have …

Every market has its own psychological barrier, and for IBM systems the magic number seems to be 1,000. As part of the recent tweaks to its PureSystems line, Big Blue brags that it now has more than 1,000 unique customers worldwide using the new boxes.
IBM did not supply any numbers regarding the volume of server nodes or racks …

Cisco Systems took a big bet more than four years ago when it jumped into the server market with its Unified Computing System blade and rack servers and started peddling converged Nexus switches at the same time. Those bets have paid off, and rising sales of these products are filling in the revenue gaps in the quarter ended in …

Flush with a $7.5m cash infusion back in early May, VMTurbo is taking its economic scheduling engine, inspired by Adam Smith's "invisible hand", to more clouds and more devices.
With Operations Manager 4.0, the company is supporting a wider array of hypervisors and cloud controllers, and is branching out to storage arrays and – …

Will companies want to host virtual PCs in the cloud? Microsoft and Citrix Systems think so.
For a certain set of PC users – even those accessing traditional Windows PC applications from a tablet or smartphone that is not running Windows – not only is a physical PC not a necessity, but neither is a data center serving up virtual …

Building a data centre has traditionally been a long process, with one of the major tasks being to equip it with computing devices. Specifying these, testing the various configurations and ensuring that they meet the specifications and perform the required tasks is time-consuming.
It was a lot easier in the days of the mainframe …

Cisco Systems came late to the physical and virtual server rackets and that means it has to partner to get virtual server slices out there in the data center. And it thinks virtual desktop infrastructure, or what it now calls Virtual Experience Infrastructure or VXI for short, is the killer app for its "California" Unified …

Cisco has, like other switch makers, been gradually refreshing its product line to boost bandwidth from 10Gb/sec up to 40Gb/sec and 100Gb/sec speeds, and at the Cisco Live extravaganza today in Orlando, Florida, the networking trotted out a new top-end Nexus 7700 lineup that sports new ASICs and offers a more compact design than …

Back in late spring, we ran a survey of channel players looking at how business has been developing and the outlook for the future. Well the results are in and make for some interesting reading.
First up, the obligatory health warning on the limitations of the exercise we carried out - our survey sample of 116 respondents was …

It is safe to say that the effort by Cisco Systems to break into the server racket with its Unified Computing System blade and rack servers nearly four years ago has succeeded much more than its rivals in the business had expected.
And the Virtual Computer Environment partnership between Cisco, storage juggernaut EMC, and its …

Cisco's software engineers have cooked up an uber-control-freak called UCS Central to manage server profiles, templates, and settings for up to 10,000 rack or blade machines.
You can't sell customers a true cloud if your integrated control freak in your blade-network mashup only spans 160 nodes in a single management domain, and …

Cisco Systems has stopped development on its Application Control Engine load balancer modules for its high-end switches and routers, and now networking rivals are trying to raid Cisco's installed base. Upstart A10 Networks has struck first with a Cisco ACE trade-in deal.
A10 is offering Cisco ACE shops a credit of $24,000 as …

Egenera, the virtualized server infrastructure pioneer, has certified its PAN Manager control freakery to run on IBM's BladeCenter blade servers.
With the certification on Big Blue's blades, Egenera now supports the major suppliers of X86-based blade servers – that's Hewlett-Packard, IBM, and Dell – as well as Fujitsu – which …

Hoping to get a bigger slice of the server racket in the Middle East and Africa – you know, the part of EMEA that is still showing some signs of life – Cisco Systems has tapped The Cash to peddle its Unified Computing System blade and rack servers.
The Cash, of course, refers to National Cash Register, the provider of ATM, point …

Who needs VMware? NetApp, Microsoft and Cisco are releasing validated server/hypervisor/storage designs for Hyper-V cloud data centres. We definitely won't call them vBlocks.
These template designs are part of Microsoft's clumsily named Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track program and NetApp's storage component is called the even less- …

VMworld 2012
The US Air Force doesn't let a single operator of a missile site launch a nuke all by his or her lonesome, and HyTrust, a maker of policy management and access control software for VMware virtual infrastructure, thinks IT shops should adopt the secondary approval rule for a lot of things that go on inside of the ESXi hypervisor …

Cisco Systems warns that its high-end B440 blades for its "California" Unified Computing System have a potentially disastrous defect that could result in one or more board failures, and emit a flash of light that could perhaps give system administrators heart attacks.
Last week, Cisco put out a field notice to customers using …

Cisco has rolled out upgrades to its "California" Unified Computing System blade servers, but its announcement could have been much more interesting.
The networking-cum-server-making giant is hosting its annual IT and communications Cisco Live event in Las Vegas this week, and in a perfect world this would also have been the …

Chris Kemp, the former NASA CTO who helped build the wonking Nebula infrastructure cloud for the US space agency and the techie from the NASA side who spearheaded the development of OpenStack along with Rackspace Hosting, knows about as much about control-freaking clouds with OpenStack as anyone else on the planet – and that's …

Cisco is poised to begin beta testing of the latest version of its Nexus 1000V virtual switches, including a new Essential Edition which it will offer for the low, low price of nothing at all.
The reasoning behind this pricing policy is simplicity itself: if you are trying to take on VMware in the market for virtual switches, as …

Networking giant and server wannabe Cisco Systems put the word out on the street that it was making a big cloud announcement today, but if you were expecting the company to launch a big wonking public cloud and take a run at the Amazon compute cloud juggernaut, you can forget it.
What Cisco did do was introduce its CloudVerse …